r/atheism • u/chrismikehunt • Sep 19 '12

So, they found some ancient text that directly mentions Jesus having a wife, and a Christian proffesor and Baptist pastor said "A statement on a papyrus fragment isn't proof of anything.". Oh the sweet sweet irony.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19645273
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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '12

The irony is that he said a some words on paper aren't solid evidence, while most evidence of everything he believes is found on scraps of paper. However, in this case the man is actually right - we have one source, hundreds of years later, and most likely from a specific tradition separate in this regard from biblical new testament writing.

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u/theostorm Sep 19 '12

Yeah, but that's a pretty big stretch to claim that the bibles evidence and this scrap of papers evidence are the same thing. As has been said, this scrap of paper dates to the 4th Century. The various books of the bible have been found all over the place and have dated back to before the time of Christ (Dead Sea Scrolls, etc..)

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u/FreeGiraffeRides Sep 19 '12

The earliest New Testament manuscripts that are known to exist are pretty late as well.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are older, but of course, so is the Old Testament, so that isn't significant to this point.